THE PRACTICAL PREPPER

The secret to winning every battle

Exclusive: Pat McLene notes what you don't know can kill you

Pat McLene is an avowed country boy by way of a stint in the military, working in a foundry, a degree in a field of hard science, small business owner, and small farmer. He’s been a hands-on prepper for more than 20 years with experience in food raising and preservation, water supply, off-grid communications, building and construction, tool-making, and more. He currently resides in a rural area of the American Redoubt.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. – Sun Tzu, “The Art Of War“

Last week we built a community. In doing so, we began the process of manifestly increasing the size and strength of our (and our neighbor’s) security zones. Now admittedly, if the prepper core folks who started the community building process rest on their laurels at this point, then the newly formed community is of pretty limited value, prepper-wise. But steering a united community towards greater self-dependence is a lot easier than trying to “herd cats.”

How so? Well, get a master gardener in to teach gardening to community members. Even city people can grow food in community gardens. Then bring in a master food-preserver to show these new produce-rich members how to keep their resulting bounty long-term. With the extra preserved food available, set up a community food bank for disaster relief or job loss or charity. Provide a gun-safety course. Then, if you’ve got the room, set up a community-use-only shooting range, or make a deal with a local shooting facility for a group rate. Set up a class on first aid, then provide the community member who is a doctor or a nurse or a first responder or even a veterinarian (there’s always at least one) with a quality medical kit and trained helpers for “emergency” medical assistance.

The list of potential of “mundane-to-prepper” turnovers is large. So get cracking. A community watch program can be quickly converted to a community patrol system IF you have the right leadership ready to take charge.

Now I know that a bunch of the “surrender and die” types and the “God wants me to do nothing to protect my family and neighbors” crowd are out there right now saying, “It can’t work.” Well, I’ve been a part of prepper community-building efforts twice in my life, and I say you’re wrong. It’s worked every time.

But if you don’t believe me, then how do you explain the various “Chinese benevolent societies” found in most major cities? Explain to me why Hasidic communities exist? Why do the Mormons have a tenet concerning food storage? How do street gangs remain viable? And exactly what were these Korean community members doing during the mis-named 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles?

Community is the forced multiplier.

Okay, we’ve briefly covered community. Now it’s time to take a look at another often overlooked – but imperative – aspect of security: intelligence and threat assessment.

A few weeks ago I wrote a column that referenced a book entitled “Holding Your Ground: Preparing for Defense if it All Falls Apart” by Joe Nobody. I think this book would be a valuable addition to any prepper’s book shelf, but I did take exception to his lack of concern for the value of community with regards to security, and with his statement: “For our purposes, we don’t know very much about who we might have to defend against – because they don’t exist yet.”

“If the lights go out tomorrow – if some catastrophic event occurs, perhaps the event for which you’ve been preparing – then the only thing more important than determining the cause is the ability to anticipate its effects on our community,” he writes.

Lots of preppers and prepper communities work really hard to prep for every possible contingency – from a world-changing EMP to a Yellowstone eruption to a “Mars Needs Women” invasion (hmmm … Yvonne Craig). Far too many people in the prepper community plan for the events that they most fear, not those challenges that are most likely.

And that’s a problem, because unlike the feds – who can just print more money and hire more people – most of us have far too limited resources available to “shotgun” every possible threat. The reality is that, when the lights go out, our greatest worry won’t be a Mad Max biker brigade. It will come with that delegation of folks from the closest town or from the neighbors down the way. Making community in our area will help with both of those potential problems, but determining what makes a realistic threat requires serious thought. It will be a combination of likelihood and degree of danger that we will need to make our plans.

Below are a couple of Threat Assessment grids. The one on the left is a sample of an all-threats grid. The one on the right is specific to local, human-related potential threats. Everyone should prepare for natural disasters, but getting actionable intelligence ahead of time on a wildfire is problematic.

So here’s how it works. Get together with a few like-minded friends and start plotting the locations on the grid for local groups, agencies, gangs, tribes and specific individuals who can affect your community safety. Be as inclusive as you want and be prepared for disagreement. None of this is written in stone; and as you receive data on these entrants, their positions may well change. Include the church down the lane, the local police department, the MS-13 affiliate gang, etc. Make this a challenge.

Bring your plot with you next week and I’ll tell you what to do with the information it contains. But until then, keep building community, start looking at realistic potential threats … and get prepared.

The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable. – Sun Tzu, “The Art Of War“

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